Small Companies are from Venus, Large Companies from Mars

I always appreciate comments from innovation leaders from smaller or larger companies as they get their hands dirty and do real work on innovation.

Once again, Russ Conser from Shell’s GameChanger program had some interesting comments. This time as a response to my post on Why Smaller Companies Should Embrace Open Innovation.

This is what Russ had to say:
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Stefan, as often the case, you’re on the right track – SME’s need big companies as much as big companies need SME’s.

The trouble is that it’s a classic example of one being from Venus and the other from Mars.

Precisely because they’re different and they need each other, they often come into conflict early in a relationship. Us big company guys still have plenty to learn about how to work with SMEs without killing the very things that make them valuable (e.g. creativity, flexibility).

Meanwhile, SMEs also need to learn to have realistic expectations of what they have and what they still need if they want to make their ideas real – much of which can often be found in the hands of the corporate types (e.g. financial resources, complementary skills, practical context).

My experience is that most often there’s more enough value at the intersection for both to be happy with the gains of a relationship, as long as they don’t kill each other in the process of creating it.
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I definitely agree with Russ on this and I look forward to continuously explore how these relationships can develop for the better.